Bacteria do not develop transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, but they have been found to produce prions – proteins that can adopt alternative conformations with different functions. Prion diseases, a frequent topic on this blog, are caused by misfolding of a normal cellular prion protein (illustrated; image copyright ASM Press). Prion proteins are found in other organisms, where the alternative conformation …
Yoshinori Ohsumi has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on autophagy, a process of eukaryotic cells for degrading and recycling cellular components. Because of his research, we now understand the importance of autophagy in health and human disease. It is another example of the serendipity of science and …
A Nobel for autophagy, and the importance of fundamental research Read More »
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit, and Dickson Despommier Vincent, Rich, and Dickson review a meta-analysis on influenza vaccine, a killer virus in fungi that selects against RNAi, and the use of armed and targeted poxviruses for oncolytic virotherapy. Please help us by taking our listener survey. [powerpress url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV156.mp3″] Click the arrow above to play, or right-click …
TWiV 156: Armed and targeted killer meta-analysis Read More »
I joined Marc Pelletier on episode 60 of Futures in Biotech for a conversation with Malcolm Whiteway about one of the most powerful genetic model systems: Saccharomyces cerevisiae. [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/fib0069.mp3 | titles=FiB 69] Download FiB #69 (46 MB .mp3, 95 minutes) Download video (231 MB .mp4)
